Transitioning from student to prospective employee is absolutely terrifying. In about two months' time, I will no longer have the security of university. No longer will my days, months, years be scheduled around semesters and (avoiding) classes. Scary stuff. Granted, this is assuming I pass my units this semester, and I can't say that I'm not tempted to fail on purpose so I can postpone growing out of my student body (side note: was that some great phrasing or what? Damn. I'll have to try extra hard to not be so brilliant in order to get below 50% this semester).
I'm not worried about being incompetent. I'm not particularly worried about getting a job. I'm not worried about having a dismal future with no money or half-decent reputation to my name. But I guess there is a real sense of wariness and apprehension for any graduate, moving into the real world that our teachers love to go on about.
I think that journalism in particular is a difficult field to get into. It's competitive, and there seems to be a lot of luck involved - right place, right time, right person etc - when it comes to securing a job. There are so many talented people out there, and not just recent graduates, who are searching high and low for work. The worst part is that talent is never enough. Lots of great writers or broadcasters are jobless, and this combined with the rise of the internet makes it all a lot harder (which conveniently brings me to my next point. Curse my skills!).
The internet is both a blessing and a curse for journalists (speaking in the new-media sense, I don't want to get into the blogger/journalist debate here). On one hand, there are so many options and so much potential for success, purely based on its democratic nature. Literally anyone can start a website and secure an audience of some description. This can lead to anything. On the other hand, the fact that there are so many people doing the same thing makes it more difficult to get noticed. And this goes hand in hand with social networking; just look at the number of options you have - FaceBook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogs, Forums etc. Everyone is spread so thin, but people feel like they have to be everywhere in order to be noticed. Even I feel the pressure sometimes, and my blog isn't even a blip on the radar.
At the moment I feel very overwhelmed with my options. Do I continue this blog? Do I look to the future and start a more professional website? Should I have an online portfolio? What should I do to make the best possible statement? I've done a lot of reading on the matter and I've come up empty handed. Everyone's situation is different and I'm not sure of the best route to take from here. So my thoughts right now are "Hmm, decisions decisions!" and then a bit of a blank. I'm worried about making a choice one way or the other, and regretting it later. I don't know. This is probably the wrong attitude, especially since all these new avenues open to me are rather new developments. Perhaps past graduates felt like they had limited options, and here I am complaining about too many.
If there's anything I took away from my internship at the ABC, it's that I can do it. I had originally not been very interested in broadcast media (I feel more comfortable writing and not having to think about pictures or audio) but I was surprised to find how comfortable I felt in that environment. I have the skills and I am very ambitious. I guess it's all a matter of where or how I channel my energy. End rant (for tonight anyway).
